IBM has named the first winners of its Watson Mobile Developer Challenge that recognises mobile consumer and business apps created using Watson cognitive capabilities and one of the winners is based in the UK.

The three winners are UK company Red Ant’s retail sales trainer, GenieMD’s health management tool, and the Majestyk Apps friendly anthropomorphic networked genome [F.A.N.G.], and each one will join the Watson Ecosystem Program to further develop and deploy each app commercially.

“These bright and enterprising organizations have discovered innovative ways to apply Watson that can deliver demonstrable business benefits,” said Steve Gold, vice president, ecosystems, IBM Watson Group. “Their ideas, along with many others we received, confirm our belief that putting Watson into the hands of entrepreneurs will make cognitive systems the computing standard of the future.”

Red Ant, the UK’s only winner, works by allowing employees to identify the buying preferences of each customer by analysing demographics, purchase histories and wish lists in addition to product information, local pricing, customer reviews and technical specifications. All this gives customised selling points unique to the customer via an onscreen prompt or text-to-speech via an earpiece.

GenieMD, meanwhile, delivers a health app that encourages individuals to take a more active role in managing personal health by making data actionable and shareable. It provides relevant and personalised medical recommendations to enable family caregivers to deliver care that is more effective and efficient.

Lastly, Majestyk Apps’ F.A.N.G. is designed to provide an adaptive educational relationship between a child and their parents. It does so by using a cognitive, cuddly plush companion that utilises Watson to give a customised educational experience and assist each child’s development through a number of contextual interactions.